Shard
I hate the word “shard.” A shard is a sliver of glass or a scrap of shattered pottery, but we never use it that way. Now, we only use it as a simile to describe a state of mind: “His thoughts were scattered like shards of a broken window across the sidewalk.” People think it’s poetic. But when I hear the word “shard” I think of a similar word–“shart.” That’s what I think of writing that uses words like “shard.” I think: “Hmmm. That writer is full of shart.”
Robust
“Robust” is a sharty word. When I was a kid, “robust” was the kind of word you used in the same sentence with “Hemmingway.” It was a great erection of a word. But along came post-feminism and “robust” began to suffer from diminished levels of testosterone. “Robust” gathered some head in the eighties as a way to describe the performance of software and operating systems. But that’s a little like prescribing Viagra to a eunuch. Just try to picture Bill Gates skewering a bull in Pamplona and you’ll see what I mean.
Period
A period can be a lot of things: an epoch, an era, the history class before lunch, a dot on a page, the end of a sentence, a clot of blood discharged following the unsuccessful fertilization of an ovum, and – and – and – the one that really gets me – the leakage of dictaphone instructions into ordinary speech: “No, you can’t take the car out tonight and my decision is final. Period!” It kind of makes you want to poke out the speaker’s eyes with leftover commas.
Suddenly
The word “suddenly” is one of those odd words that can’t help but undermine itself. Which delivers its impact more suddenly?
- John drove the pike through Mary’s skull.
- Suddenly, John drove the pike through Mary’s skull.
The first one, right? So why bother using the word at all?
Actually
While we’re slagging adverbs, the word “actually” is like those Styrofoam peanuts that stick to your pants no matter how hard you kick your legs. They’re filler designed to cushion your brain from collisions with real words. When I read words like “actually” and its cousin “very” I wonder what the writer has against verbs. It’s like adding water to a good Merlot.
Retort
When I was in grade five and we were learning to use quotation marks, my teacher had a brain-storming session: think of all the different ways a quotation could be introduced. “Mummy, John just drove a pike through my skull,” exclaimed Mary. Or she could answer, reply, entreat, expound, plead, remark, observe, relay or even ejaculate. But the most troubling to me was “retort.” Maybe because it sounded like a stale dessert. Whatever the reason, I now have a rule. If a character in a novel retorts anything, I draw my reading to a close and gently deposit the book in the nearest trash receptacle. Retort belongs to the vocabulary of a clever ten-year-old, but we’re all grown up now, aren’t we?
Then
More often then not, “then” shows up incorrectly in comparative constructions. When it’s used correctly, it’s as a connective thread between a list of vaguely related events as if they’re being spewed by a breathless ten year old: “First I drove a pike through Mary’s skull, then I went to the corner store for a popsicle, then I sat on the curb and ate it, then the cops came to question me.” What I said for the word “retort” applies to the word “then”: we’re all grown up now.
Fuck
“Fuck” is a Teutonic addition to the English language. It is blunt and indelicate. It delivers its meaning with a directness that shocks the senses. Aw who am I kidding? I love the word “fuck”. It’s like a Swiss army knife – so compact yet useful in so many different situations.
Neat
There’s no way to use the word neat and not sound like you wear plastic dark-framed glasses with tape in the middle.
Hegemony
When I was in school, I used this word all the time. It was fashionable. “Hegemony” is the word of choice for middle-class conspiracy theorists. It’s the boogie-man for people with graduate degrees. It would be a useful word if it weren’t that so many people with graduate degrees still look under their bed every night and then talk about what they saw there the next day.